Cape League Extra: Brewer shakes it off

When a closer gives up a walkoff homer in a game of some magnitude – say an NCAA Regional elimination game – there are usually lingering concerns about his ensuing mental state.

RUSS CHARPENTIER

HYANNIS – When a closer gives up a walkoff homer in a game of some magnitude – say an NCAA Regional elimination game – there are usually lingering concerns about his ensuing mental state.

It took 20-year-old Hyannis Mets closer Russell Brewer just nine days of Cape League action to completely wipe away any thoughts of lingering damage.

Vanderbilt’s Brewer was 5-for-5 in save opportunities in the Mets’ first eight games – just a couple weeks after giving up a walkoff, two-run homer to Oklahoma’s Aaron Baker on a 3-2 pitch. The homer turned an apparent 10-9 Vandy victory into an 11-10 defeat, and it brought a stunning end to the Commodores’ season in the Tempe, Ariz., Regional.

“A baseball player, especially as pitcher, has to have a very short memory,” Brewer said. “A pitcher, almost pitch to pitch. If you let one pitch drag into the next pitch, it’s going to snowball. You’ve got to forget.

“It bothered me for a couple days, then I told myself I couldn’t drag it up here. It wouldn’t do me any good. Baseball is a humbling game, that’s for sure. I can’t change it now.”

First-year Hyannis field manager Rick Robinson knew the story, but it didn’t take him long to also find out what he had in Brewer.

“I think (the walkoff homer Brewer allowed) is just part of baseball,” said Robinson, head coach at Young Harris College in Georgia. “Sometimes you make a bad pitch and they’re going to hit it out. Sometimes you make a bad pitch and they line out to the first baseman. You have to make the best pitch you can and hope for the best.

“We knew we were going to use Russell out of the bullpen. After he and I talked, we wanted to close him and he wanted to be used as a closer. The biggest thing I know about him he’s a competitor. He wants the ball and he wants to be out there.”

Robinson has obliged. Brewer threw six innings in those first five Hyannis appearances, fanning seven, walking only one and allowing three hits. No runs allowed.

Pretty good for a shortstop, which was what the 6-foot, 190-pound Brewer was when he came out of small, Class-A South Stanly High School in Norwood, N.C. “We had only 85 or 90 kids in my graduating class,” he said.

Wake Forest had some interest in him, and Army was recruiting him. But Brewer, a National Honor Society member ranked fifth in his class, wanted more.

“I went to a camp at Vanderbilt,” he said. “I talked to coach (Tim Corbin) before camp, and he followed me around camp. I was taking ground balls at third, he was standing right next to me.”

Pressure?

“Oh, yeah.”

Brewer got to Vanderbilt, where he thought he might play third. But there was a logjam in the infield – think Pedro Alvarez and Ryan Flaherty – and he was redshirted. He had pitched a little in high school, and also threw in some fall scrimmages for the Commodores.

Last summer, Brewer went to the Valley League, and while playing every day resumed his pitching career (he had done some throwing in high school). He made three relief appearances, then eight starts, going 4-2, 2.15, with 54 strikeouts and only 10 walks in 54 1/3 innings. His team, the Waynesboro Generals, won the league. Brewer played right field on the days he didn’t pitch.

Back at school, he eventually grabbed the closer roll and finished with a team-high eight saves.

“At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t the closer,” he said. “I think we had three guys (on the Vanderbilt staff) with any college pitching experience. We had eight pitchers drafted the year before. It was kind of a tossup. I fell into the role of pitching late in the game.”

Now he’s on the Cape, in Hyannis, building up a new reputation as the go-to guy for the resurgent Mets.

“That’s what it’s all about in college ball, getting to the Cape or Team USA,” he said. “It’s fun seeing all these great players every day. See all these guys you read about in Baseball America. It’s kind of cool.”

Brewer, who will be draft eligible next June, doesn’t have the velocity some closers have. His fastball is generally 88-90 mph, but a slider and change he can throw effectively make honing in on the fastball fatal for a batter. He’s also been working on a splitter against left-handed hitters.

“Biggest thing, he can throw any of his pitchers for a strike at any time,” said Robinson. “3-2 or 0-2, doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have great velocity you see in closers, but when you mix your pitches up and hitters aren’t sure what’s coming, 88 can look like 94.”

When he gets back to school, Brewer doesn’t forsee any lingering effect from the homer in Tempe: “My pitching coach at school (Derek Johnson) told me after he’d go to me every day and twice on Tuesday.”